Mighty Pats Win With Loss
FANTASY CIRCUS – It was a show-stopping finale in AF’s Fantasy Circus that came down to the final minutes of play with the Mighty Pats surviving a loss to be named the 2016 Ring Master. Because the Fantasy Circus uses a special championship round-robin format (Round 3), and because of the Round 3 standings going into Week 17, all four remaining squads had a shot at the title. Mighty Pats, ranked #3 on the Association‘s Top 25, had the edge, with a 2-0 Round 3 record, but they faced a powerhouse Cutlering the Cheese team, ranked #6 in the Association, with a 1-1 Round 3 record. Sock Bandits and Scarlett Starlets were 1-1 as well, and faced off with each other. A win by Mighty Pats would leave them 3-0 in the Championship Tournament and the clear-cut champs, while a loss would create 3, 2-1 teams and send the title to tiebreakers. The first tiebreaker by League Rules is head-to-head record within the round, but the rules state that if there are more than two teams tied, that tiebreaker is nullified and the tiebreaker becomes total points within the round.
Sock Bandits did what they could to capture the league title, defeating the Starlets 42-30, and finishing with a Round 3 record of 2-1 with 130 points, but it wasn’t enough. The Starlets finished in fourth place, as they did in the 2015 campaign. Cutlering the Cheese was the team that could control things; they needed a win to get to 2-1, which they got, defeating the Mighty Pats in a close 43-39 slugfest. But they also needed to cover a points margin, and in the end, it wasn’t enough. The win left both teams with 2-1 Round 3 records, and Cutler’s Cheese would have needed another 10 points in the match to surpass Mighty Pats in total round points to come out on top. When the dust settled, the final standings in the Circus were Mighty Pats 2-1, 147 and Cutlering the Cheese 2-1, 138.
Mighty Pats is run by AF Registered Coach Mighty Pats, one of several Association teams of the same name, and although all of the teams in the Mighty Pats family have done well this season, the Fantasy Circus Mighty Pats have been by far the most successful. They were ranked #2 in the Association on the weekly Top 25 in Weeks 7 through 13 before dropping to #3 overall to the Dixie League’s Sanford Celeryfeds. Third overall in the Association (among 86 qualifying teams) is were they’ll finish 2016, with a VsL (vs League) win percentage of .770 and the title of 2016 Fantasy Circus Ringmaster.
